


The Grimvault

by ninamazing



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: dwliterotica, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-29
Updated: 2007-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It had nearly killed her, countless times, but Rose who was once a pretty blonde dropout with a job at a department store was now an intergalactic time-traveler, saver of lives, queen of hearts, courageous heroine next to the most important person there was in existence. </em>Fantastic<em>, she thought, </em>fantastic<em>—she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with all the strength she had left.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grimvault

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for the dwliterotica January Challenge, for which my prompt was the Tarot card "Knight of Wands." My beta goldy_dollar is pretty much the Awesome. The Legendary Awesome. Et cetera. Also, for the record, Nine sometimes confuses me with his casual, cutting digs at humans which sometimes turn into heart-rending monologues about the nobility of the British people. I think he's just trying to use sarcasm as a way of keeping people from getting close to him. BUT IT DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK.

Rose had spent some time in the countryside with her grandmother, soaking up the gloom of rain and sitting inside, pressing her nose to the glass as she smelled the stifling overtones of cat and perfume. She knew how it felt to leave school for someone, give up decent GCSEs to be a man's sex kitten, and then have him slowly suck away her money and her life until, impossibly, it was difficult for _her_ to leave _him_. She even knew about going back in time and being forced to watch her dad die in front of her, with a gnawing little voice in her head that whispered _for a moment there you traded the Doctor's life for his, and how do you feel about_ that _?_

Been around the block a bit, Rose had. But coldness—darkness—like this was a stranger to her. She'd never heard or seen or felt _this_ before.

"H—h—hello?" she tried again. It had been at least four times now that she'd yelled into the black, only to be met with uncaring silence. "I—just—I think it's only fair that I at least know where I am," she finished, more bravely than she'd begun. Talking always helped.

A rustling sound emerged from behind her—something like dry straw shoots rubbing together, or a sparking wire being dragged across a stone floor.

"Hello?" Rose asked, keeping her voice steady.

"Hello," a quiet voice replied—Rose could only describe it as _shriveled_. She whirled around to face what she thought was the source of the sound, but she still couldn't find it. There was no light.

"Another one, are you?" the voice continued.

"Sorry," said Rose, "but another one of _what_?"

The scratching sound erupted again. Maybe it was _laughter_?

"Another colonist," the voice answered. "Come to help this planet sort out its energy problem. We're covered with offerings from your types—scientists, and engineers. We've got nuclear generators and particle receivers and probably a couple of gyroscopes. Can't crawl to my pit anymore without crossing over bundles of wire."

"Your pit?" Rose questioned, a little faintly. Culture shock, she reminded herself. Not all evil creatures lived in pits and crawled. The Doctor would come soon, and explain to her what type of place this was. His sonic screwdriver had a light on it, she remembered—she could see by that. He could rig up something clever, give some energy to the whatever-it-was talking to her. Decorate its pit, if it wanted.

"Well, it's not really underground," amended the voice. "But without a sun, who notices the difference?"

"Right," Rose replied. "Well, I've—I have got a friend, see, who might be able to help. Make something that actually works, if you want. He's called the Doctor? D'you know him?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll meet eventually," the voice told her. "I find everyone who comes through here."

"Oh," was Rose's response. She wished her voice didn't sound so weak, but it was hard to stay optimistic without light, when she was shivering so badly. "That's good."

"Well, that's about as much time as you deserve," continued the voice, now sounding businesslike. "Close your eyes now, and I'll just nip in and feed off your brain. You seem fairly sprightly for a human, so that's encouraging. Hope you've got a lot of emotions—anger can power my heaters for a month."

"What?" Rose shrieked. "You've got to be kidding—there's no _way_ I'm—"

"Ah, well, the eye-closing was really only for your benefit," said the voice. "Many of the things I eat find it makes them feel better. Be that as it may—"

There was never any light, not even a glimmer. All Rose heard was a vast sucking sound, like someone was jamming an iron pipe down her throat and pulling all the life out of her at once.

*

Once, after her tour through the Library of Milky Way Galaxy Lifeforms and a particularly luxurious bathroom designed for humans of her size, she had asked the Doctor, "How big is the TARDIS, really?" She pulled on his hands, walking backwards in front of him as they moved. "Have you just got, like, endless rooms"—she smiled at this thought—"or do they change? Do you design everything?"

"Well, I like to keep my companions amused, Rose," he said, grinning back.

"How many have there been, then?" she returned, her questioning growing a little less light and more serious. Not that she wanted him to notice.

"Plenty," he answered, the smile gone, his blue eyes unreadable. Of course, he had noticed—he was the Doctor. Her Doctor.

She couldn't think of a reply; she wasn't sure what he meant her to understand from that. It had been a bit funny then, Rose remembered—that sharp twist of pain she felt now, when she thought about it, had been just a tiny glitch in the corner of her mind when it happened. When he said it, she'd just thought: _Men. All the same, they are, alien or not. They mess you around and steal your heart and then all of a sudden there are "plenty" of others and they won't tell you how they feel._ She'd almost laughed at the thought, then—now it made her want to choke.

"But that was all a very long time ago. A different life," he went on. "I'm not thinking about it. That way lies madness—I think one of your human compatriots said that once."

"Quoting humans, are you?" Rose teased, and just as she'd figured it would, it brought the smile back.

"Look, I'm not making a habit of it. Get on with you, Rose Tyler," he urged. "Time to see the TARDIS dungeons."

She dropped his hands and gave him an odd look, unsure if he was being serious. "Doctor?"

"S'where I keep the companions who annoy me too much," he told her with a wink.

"Aw, shut up," she fought back, and when she made to punch him lightly he gathered her up in his arms instead and swung her around, until she shrieked and kicked her legs so hard he had to put her down.

It was just like always.

*

The Doctor wasn't quite sure what Jack was doing with the seven Tellerian nymphomaniacs of Space Station Gamma Nine, but whatever it was, he was content to leave him for at least a couple of hours. There were plenty of other amusements on the station for Rose and the Doctor that didn't involve—well, inhaling aphrodisiacs so strong they'd make you want to shag pencils, for instance.

"So this port feeds directly into—Raxacoricofallapatorius," Rose said slowly.

"And a dozen other planets, too," the Doctor informed her. "It's an active little star system, this one. Should be another place we can visit, while Jack's—engaged."

Rose looked at her feet for a moment, blushing.

"Hope you're not disappointed," added the Doctor, though his tone told Rose that if she was, he would just raise his eyebrows and say something mocking.

"No," she answered quickly. "Don't know how many times I have to tell you—I like you the best. When you're not being a sod," she amended, before he could react. "Now, come on!"

She dashed down the hall ahead of him, opening one of the portal doors and stepping through before he even had a chance to shout to her. And then the door vanished, becoming just another part of the space station's impermeable walls, and the Doctor knew before he tried that his sonic screwdriver wouldn't be able to open anything.

He'd lost her.

The Doctor clicked furiously into the information screen beside him, searching for a map.

"Computer!" he yelled. "What port used to be here? Where did that door lead? _Which planet?_ "

"Door unregistered," answered the smooth voice of Space Station Gamma Nine. "Destination unknown."

"You're the eighteenth most advanced society in the universe," the Doctor raged. "You've _got_ to have more sophisticated security than that. Trackers. Logs. _Anything._ "

"Unable to comprehend instruction," the computer said cheerfully, and the Doctor gave it a withering look and spun on his heels. The knuckles of the fingers gripping his screwdriver were white and the skin around them was pulled taut. He cycled through the nearby planets he knew in his mind—none of them would have confounded the space station's master computer like this.

"You won't find it," announced a smug observer at the end of the hall.

"I'd caution you not to make snotty remarks when I'm in this mood," the Doctor warned, without looking at the individual who'd spoken.

"What the Grimvault wants, it takes," came the solemn comment.

"Look, if you want to make yourself useful," the Doctor began, fixing hard and unamused blue eyes on the interlocutor, "you can tell me everything you know about that door."

A blue face stared back at him, out of a middling frame with three arms and three legs—a Tripod mixed with a Howling Swontoni, he supposed. So not a very dangerous or influential being, but they did have that irritating empathic thing.

"It's taken many before," the blue Tripod told him after a time, "and none have returned. I watch it all from here. It likes emotive creatures."

"Fascinating," the Doctor answered. "How do I get to it?"

"You can't," the Tripod replied. "It works so quickly and so well. Your tiny friend is probably already cleaned."

"Cleaned?"

"Her head, cleaned," the Tripod clarified. "Her brain sucked out. The Grimvault feeds on them—for energy. That planet has no sun, no stars close enough to give it light or power."

"So it feeds off the electrical reactions in her synapses," finished the Doctor. "Naturally. Why doesn't Gamma Nine Control shut it down?"

"Oh, it is very quiet," said the Tripod. "A planet with no beacons, no signals, no energy. It only takes a few. Most everyone here knows not to go through that door port."

"Well, my friend didn't know," the Doctor shot back, "and it's my fault. How d'you know all this? How do I _get_ there?"

"I told you, you can't," the Tripod repeated, its three green eyes impassive. "Once someone is taken, the others know to leave."

"The others," the Doctor said softly. "There's got to be a way to find this planet without the portal. Old recorded coordinates, _something._ "

"Not here," said the Tripod. "Some of the others were upset, too. But they leave eventually. As you will."

"I'll never leave," the Doctor swore, and sat across from the place where Rose had vanished, tears creeping into his eyes. "It has to open again. I'll find a way. I'll stay here."

He wasn't paying attention to the blue Tripod anymore, but it regarded him with mild amusement. His sonic screwdriver was still clenched in his hands, his leather jacket pulled tight across his shoulders as he leaned forward, staring down the wall.

When the first tear hit the floor of Space Station Gamma Nine, the door to the Grimvault reappeared.

The Doctor smiled instantly, showing all his teeth and reaching like a maniac for the door.

"Fantastic," he said with conviction as his hand closed around the handle.

*

Rose only noticed dimly when it stopped. Her head hurt much more than it had after the night she'd done nine shots of vodka at Mickey's, and her hands and legs felt far away, as though even twitching them would require colossal effort spanning several galaxies.

"Well, _this_ is interesting," said the voice that only moments before had told her it was going to remove her brain from her body. "Turns out he had hidden depths of feeling. And now I shall get both of you at once. I could fry an egg every day for a _year_."

"You're not getting any power out of us," growled a rich Northern-accented voice that Rose knew quite well.

"Doctor!" she shrieked. "Oh, God, where are you—"

The sonic screwdriver lit up, and Rose saw his face silhouetted by blue—and in the same instant, she caught sight of the wasted-looking creature at her feet. It was strangely pity-inspiring, a wrinkled burlap sack of a lifeform, and as the Doctor pointed his screwdriver at it the creature began to melt into the ground, which Rose realized was some kind of dark and rough-textured rock.

"You can't kill me like this," the creature announced—its voice was smoother now, softer. Less scary.

"Won't stop me trying," answered the Doctor.

"Of course it will," the creature shot back. "You've taken away my ability for energy suction, and that makes me defenseless. I don't think all those raging _emotions_ inside of you will really let you destroy me. You're like a five-year-old, you are."

"A five-year-old whose best friend was almost killed," the Doctor replied coldly. "A five-year-old with the power of a Time Lord."

"Doctor," Rose protested. "It can't hurt us now. Don't—don't become a killer for me. Just—let's _go_."

"No, Rose," he told her, eyes still trained on the creature, everything thinly illuminated for her in the blue light of the screwdriver. "I'd just be leaving it here to get its strength back and feed on others. It'd find a way. I can't do that."

"She's your best friend?" the creature's scratchy voice returned. " _Best friend?_ "

The Doctor and Rose sat there, in the freezing air.

"Disgusting, both of you," said the creature. "You care more about imaginary others, about beings you've never met, than your own selves. That's a luxury—only someone with a sun could feel that. Have you ever _known_ darkness?"

"No," choked Rose. Her mascara was running, twenty-nine billion miles and thirteen hundred years away from the London drugstore where she'd bought it.

"I've known darkness," said the Doctor. His face was impassive. "It hasn't made me a killer."

"Of course it has," snapped the creature, following with a sound that could either have been a cackle or a whooping cough. "I've got an Empath Tripod right outside, and it led you to me. You have guilt, fury, impatience, fire, anger—it sensed you would be delicious."

"Glad to hear it," the Doctor said cheerily, ever-flippant.

"You kill everything around you," the creature continued, hissing now. "You act on impulse without ever knowing what that impulse means. You're unpredictable, and you pretend you're not dangerous. You let a little human girl give her whole life up to be with you and you give her nothing but sarcastic jabs back."

"Don't listen to him, Doctor," Rose yelled weakly. "He's trying to—he's _trying_ to make you give up."

"You ignore her," the creature went on with vengeance in its voice. "You ignore everything inside of you and that makes it stronger. You can't lie to me. You sun-creatures create and amplify and hide energy like it doesn't mean _anything_ , and then you get upset when someone decides to harvest it and use it for what it is."

"I don't have a sun," said the Doctor quietly. "Don't even have my own planet, like you have. So I'm afraid you've run aground on that one."

"So you'll kill me to keep hiding?" the creature returned, with venom. " _Will_ you?"

"No," answered the Doctor. "I'm going to give you energy."

Waves radiated out of the sonic screwdriver—Rose couldn't see them, but she felt them, restoring heat, and after a moment, _light_ —something like an exploding firework drifted into the air, out of the blue tip of the Doctor's ever-present tool. Light gold sparks flew out, but gradually; the air around them grew warmer, the scenery more identifiable.

"If you leave this alone," said the Doctor, "it will give you what you need."

"No," cried the creature, and it was a shrill, creaky, frightening sound—"no! I've got to—suck it in—"

In a long moment it lifted itself up off the ground, and dove for the firework of light; the Doctor shouted something and put his hand in the way, but he drew it back at once as the creature showed gnarled teeth and went for the light, stabbing, biting. Rose reached out to the rocks around her to hold herself steady, and the creature enveloped the golden light and disintegrated. Tiny bits of energy dissipated all over, leaving almost nothing behind. Crumbs. Dust.

The light in the screwdriver went out and Rose was alone in the dark again.

"Doctor?" she called out. She wasn't sure, at this point, if she was even expecting him to answer. But her head no longer hurt—that was a start.

"Rose," he answered softly, and arms enveloped her suddenly and she was pulled into his chest, pressing her face against his jacket and breathing in the warm smell of _life_ —the Doctor's scent was of gear grease, and leather, and burnt chocolate, and something else she couldn't place. Something alien. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes; relief, she guessed. She started to feel her limbs again.

"That was the closest I've ever come to dying," she whispered.

The Doctor's hands found her cheeks, brushed gently under her eyes as she sniffed.

"Congratulations, Rose Tyler," he said.

"Can you really make a joke of this?" she asked hollowly.

"Something wrong with being cheerful you're alive?" he responded. "That I saved you?"

"You did save me," she agreed. "Thank you." After a pause, she leaned even closer, not wanting his arms to stop wrapping around her, folding her in, keeping her solid. She thought of something: "How do we get out?" she asked. "That—that— _thing_ closed the door behind me when I came. Made it disappear."

"Don't know yet," the Doctor told her. "Unregistered portal, vanishing door, confounded computer—can probably rig up some kind of remote signal. Jack ought to be able to sort us out. He's got a receiver."

"Trusting him now," Rose noted in a murmur. There was approval, or jealousy, or humor, in her voice—the Doctor couldn't quite place which.

"Trusting you," he amended. "Rose, that creature was a little bit right."

"No, it wasn't," she said at once, pulling back to look at what she thought was his face.

"Rose," he repeated, gently, and she stopped. "I do act on impulse. I'm dangerous."

"I like it," she whispered.

"I know," he replied, just as low-voiced. "Because you do it, too. Not a trip goes by you're not bringing some new pretty male find onto the TARDIS."

"That's not—"

He put a finger to her lips. Rose marveled that he'd found her mouth so quickly in the all-encompassing blackness.

"Flirting's one of the great joys of the universe," he said cheerily. "I wouldn't take it away from you."

"Couldn't if you tried," she chimed in, grinning up at him, though he probably couldn't see it.

"I don't ignore you, Rose," he said.

"I know," she answered. "It's all right, Doctor. It's enough."

"No. No, it's not," he growled, and if Rose hadn't known better she'd have been afraid to look where she knew his face was in the blackness.

"Right now," he continued, "this planet is being pulled in four different directions at once, and the only thing keeping it stable is mathematics."

"Doctor?"

"If two bodies are orbiting each other," he went on, "a third body can exist in any of five points of equilibrium around them, and it will remain completely stationary. That's where we are. Trapped, on a black rock that can't move."

Rose was breathing so hard she was sure he was annoyed, but he didn't say anything. She was grateful for his own breath—she'd have to ask him how his lungs worked—warm on her cheek, and his fingers, gently stroking her back as he talked.

"We're almost exactly three billion miles away from the space station, Rose," he said. "Someone was diverting an enormous amount of power to keep that door open."

"It'll still be open, though, right, Doctor?" she asked. "We can get back. Can't we?"

They were so close together already that it was the work of a nanosecond for his mouth to find hers. Rose gasped and opened her lips, pressing harder against him, shoving herself into his body as his arms pulled her in more tightly. It seemed impossible that in this hollow grave of freezing darkness, _this_ was happening—but Rose knew her life with the Doctor was all about impossible, and she kissed him back, clinging to his jacket, to his face, to this alien she'd met who'd promised to show her around the universe, around the whole of time itself—and he had.

It had nearly killed her, countless times, but Rose who was once a pretty blonde dropout with a job at a department store was now an intergalactic time-traveler, saver of lives, queen of hearts, courageous heroine next to the most important person there was in existence. _Fantastic_ , she thought, _fantastic_ —she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with all the strength she had left.

He matched her, tucking her human frame deeper into his jacket and—Rose could tell—smiling, pulling back every so often to make her wait before he kissed her again. She wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled his head closer, not letting him move; she thought he probably had the strength to break free, but he did what she wanted. When she finally let go for a moment, she felt him smile again, and he breathed softly into her ear as he pressed tiny kisses along her jawline.

"I'm glad you came after me," she told him.

"Don't see the point of going anywhere without you," he murmured. Rose grabbed him and kissed him again, then; the reward for it was much better than what she could have had with any twenty-first century human. She felt the Doctor's presence everywhere, but she felt her own—it was like touching her right hand to her left when the left was asleep. All her nerves were doubly on fire; she could feel his breath and her hair and the weight of their bodies on the rocks beneath them. Every atom.

"You all right?" the Doctor asked, when she gasped again. He was so close, and yet she knew now that the number of quarks and leptons separating their faces was near-infinite. Everything pulsed. The universe spun around her, every planet, rocketing each other back and forth with forces too huge and mysterious for her brain to understand, even as the visceral, the visual, was shoved into her mind.

"Doctor," she whimpered, and he seemed to understand right away, taking her head into his hands.

"Trust me," he whispered, and kissed her again. The rush of accompanying lights and sounds was overwhelming, but Rose remembered— _trust me_ —and she did, closing her eyes and trying to focus on his hands, his mouth, his smell. Slowly the galaxies in her head stopped spinning, and she remembered where she was—a stationary rock, minimalist atmosphere, debris of wasted electronics, the Doctor. The Doctor was all she saw now, and she clung to him when he tried to break away, making him laugh into her lips—"you have to breathe, Rose," he told her with such fondness it made her heart feel tight.

Rose burrowed into his neck, her hands ghosting across his jumper, touching him as she'd only dreamed of doing before. For a moment she felt the strange out-of-body senses again; she was inside his thoughts as he dropped his head back and let out a sigh when she caressed him. His hands covered hers, and she jumped, thinking he meant to stop her, but he only guided her under his jumper and across his chest. She leaned into him, kissing his skin, and then realized—"Won't you be cold?" she asked softly.

His hands cupped her cheeks, massaged her head lightly. "I think I'll live, Rose Tyler," he answered.

She reached up again to wrap her arms around him and kiss his neck. He held her still—she loved that he was so tall, so old, so good at hugging.

"I'm never going to want to stop traveling with you," she told him.

"D'you think I'd let you leave?"

"Yes," she said. "But don't. If I ever even try, don't let me. Promise?"

They couldn't see each other, but Rose could feel his eyes on hers.

"I promise," he told her, and kissed her gently.

"This planet," she said after a minute, "it's not really that dark, is it?"

This time the kiss was anything but gentle.


End file.
